Marketing, sales, accounting, support – how do the rest of us handle the cadence of releases from fast, efficient Agile development teams?

I captured a high level summary of product professionals’ discussions at a recent event in Atlanta, called the Agile Affect. The panel of four and moderator all had significant experience in both waterfall and Agile. The audience was no different. Bottomline, if your product organization builds to MVP, so should your stakeholders.

You don’t have to be a developer or a product manager to use Agile methods in your craft. That being said, it’s not one-size fits all.

If you are in marketing, sales, support or operations in a company the embraces Agile in product development, it’s best practice to modify Agile methods to build your own cadence.

There should be a balance between major and minor releases to product. It’s fine to deploy every month yet hold a marketing launch every quarter or to the time-frame which best fits your market.

Whatever you do, do not overwhelm sales or your markets with over communication. Here’s that word again – balance the need for iterative product development with the need for clear product benefit messages.

Every stakeholder department can create repeatable processes for sharing market context and messaging. All can prioritize demands based on the most urgent needs.

Operations and support really, really need to be engaged, at the hip, with the Agile development teams.

ProductCamp Atlanta 2012 is next Saturday 18 August. I would bet this discussion continues there as well.

Would like very much to hear your stories about creating the Agile Affect in your company.